An undercover Israeli team that clashed with Hamas in Gaza on November 11 —an incident that brought the region to the brink of war— was installing an advanced surveillance system, according to Palestinian sources.

The United States is once again sending its special representative, Zalmay Khalilzad, to Pakistan and Afghanistan to advance the goal of an intra-Afghan dialogue, the State Department announced on Friday. Mr Khalilzad, who will also visit the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, is coming with an inter-agency delegation on his third trip to the region in less than two months. He will stay in the region from Nov 8 to 20 and will meet Afghan government officials and other interested parties to “advance the goal of an intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations that include the Taliban and lead to a sustainable peace,” the State Department said.

Southeast Asian nations hope to strike a joint agreement on cybersecurity in coming days with Russia, accused by the United States of meddling in its elections, after a series of high-profile hacks in the region.

The White House rejected on Friday a Vladimir Putin-backed effort to hold a referendum in eastern Ukraine on the region’s future, distancing itself from the idea in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s controversial summit with the Russian leader.

Voice of Karachi Chairman Nadeem Nusrat has said that at a time, when Pakistan’s military establishment, its spy agency ISI in particular, is inflicting one wound after another on Afghanistan, the United States needs reliable partners in the region.

China’s placement of weapons systems on manmade islands in the South China Sea is designed to intimidate and coerce others in the region, the US defence secretary James Mattis has said, laying out a sharp criticism of Beijing at an international security forum.

Some regional news outlets claimed recently that Iran has had indirect talks with Israel over the situation in southern parts of Syria. Reacting to these reports, Iran says the claims have been made to legitimize the Israeli regime’s illegal activities in the region.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called his friend and ally U.S. President Trump to say he’s very worried about tensions in the Middle East, after Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear accord. Macron’s office said the two leaders spoke Saturday and the French leader expressed his “great concern about stability” in the region.